By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The FBI has been asked to join a criminal investigation into the violent arrest of a local nurse who was trying to protect the constitutional rights of a patient in Utah.
District Attorney Sim Gill in Salt Lake City wants the FBI to help determine whether the arresting officer or anyone else on the police force violated the civil rights of the nurse, Alex Wobbels, whose July 26 arrest went viral, according to a letter made public Thursday.
“We request an investigation in addition to any other criminal or other investigation of the matter,” Gill wrote in the letter. “In order to be thorough, and given the gravity of the rights potentially implicated, all issues must be completely examined to restore the public trust currently compromised by the actions depicted in the publicly released video recordings of the incident. It is essential that all individuals and institutions associated with this incident should be investigated to document the roles they played in the incident to prevent such a thing from happening again. Our community and its citizens deserve nothing less.”
The arrest was caught on a police body camera, prompting widespread outrage at Detective Jeff Payne’s handling of the nurse. The hospital also barred police from having contact with nurses.
